I am proud to announce a live electronic link to the
HUNGARIAN GOVERNMENT,organized and maintained jointly by
HIX (Hollosi Information eXchange) and MET (Magyar Elektronikus Tozsde).
Anyone from the Internet or from commercial services with Internet
mail capability (Compuserve, MCI Mail, etc.) can send e-mail to
-------------------
-------------------
The messages will be collected and forwarded to the spokesperson of the
Hungarian Government who, at her discretion, might forward them to other
interested parties.
HIX will send you an automatic acknowledgement, but do not necessarily
expect a personal reply to your letter. Digest replies and other
related communications will be forwarded by MET (Magyar Elektronikus Tozsde)
to HIX/MOZAIK, which can be subscribed directly (send a message to
for details), can be read on the Hungarian Gopher (gopher to hix.elte.hu)
and is regularly posted to the Usenet newsgroup soc.culture.magyar.
This service offers an exceptionally direct link to the Hungarian Government
on an experimental basis. There is no infrastructure in place to sort,
route, and read the volumes of messages the Internet can generate.
Therefore, we ask you to use this service prudently. (For example, collect
names and e-mail addresses and send a single message rather than organizing
a message-writing campaign.) And there is no guarantee that even the largest
petition will be acted upon -- if you want to make absolutely sure that your
voice is heard please use traditional mail.
Although this announcement is in English, you should write your letter
in Hungarian if possible.
Jozsef Hollosi /HIX/

E1va Balogh writes:
>>One may argue the opposite, namely that religion, in particular>>institutionalized religion, is poison.>Yes, indeed. If I recall properly, it was Marx who claimed that religion was>nothing but poison. (Exact quotation escapes me right now.)
He said religion was the opium of the people. I believe he referred to the
effect of shifting attention from this material world to unworldly or
otherwordly matters. It is hard to deny religion has such an effect, but I'm
not so sure this is altogether bad, and I'm a liberal about opium too.
I used the term "poison" to describe the corroding effect that belief in
miracles has on the rational mind. The idea that a literal reading of the
Bible is incompatible with rational thinking goes back to the Enlightenment
(which has this name for the specific reason of removing the dark of
medieval religious thinking and replacing it with the light of intellect)
and has nothing to do with the socialist movement. (BTW I don't accept the
reasoning that if Marx said something it must necessarily be wrong -- blind
negation is almost as bad as blind acceptance.)
At any rate the idea is not original with me (or with Marx) and I'm not
particularly interested in a debate about how all the radiocarbon and other
evidence is wrong and how the world *was* in fact created only a few
thousand years ago. What I am greatly interested in is making sure that my
children are not exposed in school to the educational zeal of a Peto3 Hunor
until they have a basic grounding in science. (In case you don't read HIX,
Peto3 Hunor is a regular poster there who does espouse a literal reading of
the Bible. He should by all means be able to do so -- just not in the
school, not in the army, and nowhere where people have no alternative but to
listen to it because it comes from a superordinate.)
>This anti-religious stance of the socialist movement has remained a constant>all through the nineteenth century and later, and, unfortunately, this>Marxist tenet had very ugly consequences later in the Soviet Union and its>satellites. Therefore, I would not argue anything of the sort.
With due respect, this is the weakest argumentation I've ever seen from
you. It boils down to the following: the socialists were anti-religious,
the socialists were bad, therefore being anti-religious is bad. Try the
following: Hitler built roads, Hitler was bad, therefore building roads
is bad.
>How right you are, I have never heard of Sine1ad O'Connor! I am stricly and>militantly classical in my musical tastes and avoid pop singers and youth>idols with a vengeance. Admitting such a bias, I consider such behavior>tasteless.
It's not the most inspired and brilliant form of protest I must agree.
>>The issue is almost moot: with budgets like in the past five years, the work>>of dismantling these institutes is effectively completed. What remains is>>either self-supporting (like computer science, applied physics) or>>low-budget (like history or philosophy).>If that is the case, then I don't understand the whole upheaval about>elections at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. From the article I read, it>looks as if the elections had a great deal to do with financial allocations
According to the last issue of HVG, the budget of the Academy was cut
by 80% (adjusted for inflation) over the past four years.
>During the Rakosi period when the Academy got into the business of presiding>over research institutions in the humanities and social sciences, the move>was clearly political. Today the maintenance of such relationship would be>not only superfluous but would threaten the independence of historical/social>science research.
I agree.
Andra1s Kornai

it is in the critique of Feuerbach
On Sat, 27 Aug 1994, Hugh Agnew wrote:
> Dear listmembers,>> I am sure that, if I were sitting in the library instead of at home> in the midst of infernal chaos (packing for a sabbatical) I could pull> the Marx quote out of some reference, and I think you would find that> in fact, both things are said, and in the same sentence. It's one of> the famous quotations-out-of-context examples.>> Now if I weren't lazy, I'd just do a Veronica search in the on-line> Marx-Engels library and find the quote. But I am. So I only exhort--> go and look it up and see if I'm not right!>> But packing calls,>> Sincerely,>> Hugh Agnew> >

Eva S. Balogh writes:
>If I recall properly, it was Marx who claimed that religion is>nothing but poison.
And, for example, Voltaire said also about the church: "Tiporja'tok el
a gyala'zatost!". ("Ecrasez l'infame!", if I remember well). Does it
mean that he was also socialist? It's quite a surprise for me...
Pe'ter

The VCR tapes in Hungary are VHS, like they are everywhere (almost). PAL/NTSC
/SECAM is simply a matter of diffrent encoding formats just like a 3.5 inch
macintosh disk won't work in a PC (without conversion). I am sure you can
find somebody to convert the tape for you. Most of the big video specialty
stores can otherwise there are numerous mail order places advertised in back
of magazines....marc
BTW, Am I wrong in believing that Hungary uses SECAM and not PAL? Does anybody
know for sure?

Charles Atherton wrote about the separation of church and state a few days
ago, and, in my opinion rightly, defended the idea. I myself, addressing my
words to Eva Durant, expressed a strong opposition to blurring the division
between the secular and the religious. My original question about the
churches' role in the army, as Andras pointed out, was simply an inquiry
concerning the legality and the political efficacy of reneging on commitments
made earlier by the former government. In this particular case, Gyorgy
Keleti, the new minister of defense, informed the three appointed religious
heads (Catholic, Protestant, Jewish) of the armed forces that for financial
reasons the army will not be able to give military ranks to army chaplains as
it had been promised to them earlier. I may call your attention that these
religious leaders already received ranks during the former administration.
Andras assured us that this particular political move was actually very
popular in Hungary because the Hungarian population resents earlier
administrative and parliamentary decisions concerning the return of schools
and some real estate to the churches. I am inclined to believe Andras that
the Hungarian population, mostly irreligious, if not anti-religious, does not
not particularly care about this issue. Yet, looking at it from the outside,
it strikes me as a mean-spirited, anti-church move, which looks suspiciously
retrograde. After all, this government is perceived abroad as a
post-communist one in which there are several old-timers from the Kadar
regime. Although the general feeling at the moment is that these socialists
do not in any way resemble the old party apparatchiks, a few more moves like
this might change the perception abroad.
I am not sure whether this particular move originated with Keleti or came
down from higher up, like the cabinet. In any case, I can't quite understand
the necessity of this move. Surely, the government's concern is not really
the question of separation of church and state because, after all, the
Hungarian government allots sizeable yearly subsidies to the recognized
churches. (Something I find difficult to swallow.) It may be only a
money-saving device which, unfortunately, harks back to the post-communists'
darker side. Eva Balogh

Kenneth Nyirady asked the other day about a good, idiomatic translation of
the Hungarian expression "nem tala'ltak meghallgata'sra." Kenneth thought of
"fell on deaf ears," which seems to be close enough. The only trouble I see
with it that "to fall on deaf ears" has an exact Hungarian equivalent:
"su2ket fu2lekre tala1lt." Perhaps a simple translation like "it didn't find
acceptance," would be better. Because "to fall on deaf ears" is stronger than
"nem tala'ltak meghallgata'sra." But perhaps Gabor Fencsik, whose
translations from Hungarian I admire, might be able to come up with something
better. Eva Balogh

Dear Eva,
> the army will not be able to give military ranks to army chaplains as> it had been promised to them earlier. I may call your attention that these> religious leaders already received ranks during the former administration.
As it was correctly stated on this list before: the new government's move
does not concern ranks already received, only those promised but not
given by the previous government.
-- Zoli

The VCR tapes from Hungary are PAL, not Secam. I have a couple
on hand and checked to make sure.
BTW, conversions can often be accomplished at local public-access
television stations for less money than through commercial services.

adriano p. PALMA writes:
>> > Now if I weren't lazy, I'd just do a Veronica search in the on-line> > Marx-Engels library and find the quote. But I am. So I only exhort--> > go and look it up and see if I'm not right!
Hugh agnew> >
> > > >>
the quote is "religion is the opiate of the masses" and it was in
the context that religion is used by the establishment to take
people's minds off real problems and get them thinking of the
unsolveable and unknowable other world.
To which my own reply (not yet quite so well known) is:
Marxism is the arsenic of the masses.
(those who know pharmacology will know why. for those who don't,
arsenic in tiny doses is said to improve the feeling of well-being,
brighten the eyes, and strengthen the physique. It then quietlty
accumulates in the body until the dose is large enough to permanently
remove all your worries and cares from this world)
Jan George Frajkor _!_
School of Journalism, Carleton Univ. --!--
1125 Colonel By Drive |
Ottawa, Ontario /^\
Canada K1S 5B6 /^\ /^\
/
o: 613 788-7404 fax: 613 788-6690 h: 613 563-4534

On Sat, 27 Aug 1994, Norbert Walter wrote:
> question: do the PAL and NTSC systems use the same size tapes (VHS)? I
Indeed. The fact that you say VHS - or as some engineers might call it
half an inch tape - refers to a certain size which is uniformed.
Attila "az incstelen"

I am proud to announce a live electronic link to the
HUNGARIAN GOVERNMENT,organized and maintained jointly by
HIX (Hollosi Information eXchange) and MET (Magyar Elektronikus Tozsde).
Anyone from the Internet or from commercial services with Internet
mail capability (Compuserve, MCI Mail, etc.) can send e-mail to
-------------------
-------------------
The messages will be collected and forwarded to the spokesperson of the
Hungarian Government who, at her discretion, might forward them to other
interested parties.
HIX will send you an automatic acknowledgement, but do not necessarily
expect a personal reply to your letter. Digest replies and other
related communications will be forwarded by MET (Magyar Elektronikus Tozsde)
to HIX/MOZAIK, which can be subscribed directly (send a message to
for details), can be read on the Hungarian Gopher (gopher to hix.elte.hu)
and is regularly posted to the Usenet newsgroup soc.culture.magyar.
This service offers an exceptionally direct link to the Hungarian Government
on an experimental basis. There is no infrastructure in place to sort,
route, and read the volumes of messages the Internet can generate.
Therefore, we ask you to use this service prudently. (For example, collect
names and e-mail addresses and send a single message rather than organizing
a message-writing campaign.) And there is no guarantee that even the largest
petition will be acted upon -- if you want to make absolutely sure that your
voice is heard please use traditional mail.
Although this announcement is in English, you should write your letter
in Hungarian if possible.
Jozsef Hollosi /HIX/